


Eraser Shavings

by Noscere



Series: Cladograms and Phylogenies [8]
Category: RWBY
Genre: Bus, Gen, Identity Issues, Inspired by Real Events
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-11
Updated: 2016-11-11
Packaged: 2018-08-30 09:00:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8527063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Noscere/pseuds/Noscere
Summary: Wouldn't life just be easier if everyone looked the same?





	

It’s the same old story.

Blake doesn’t know why it happens – well, no, that’s not correct. She know why men older than her stare at her ears and whistle, “ _here kitty, kitty, I’ll treat you real good with my cream”_ and why girls her age whisper between their hands, hints of, “ _she’s got to put out, girls like her always put out_.” She knows why people laugh when they see her at the bookstore, buried in a book. “ _Typical. You think she ever looks out of the book? Maybe she’ll be a secretary one day, like all the others._ ”

She knows why the man huddled in old army fatigues on the corner of Sixteenth and Fire, whose fingers are spotted with syphilis sores and stink of rancid greasy fries dug out from the local burger joint’s trash, hisses when he sees her pass by. He’s a veteran of the Faunus wars, the sole survivor of his unit, tossed out with the trash after being touted as a savior and a hero. She knows from the newspaper articles. If Blake looks hard enough, she can see the man he once was in the faded eyes and bush of tangled hair.

She is exotic, but not too exotic when fifty percent of the population looks like her. She raises her hackles at any implication that someone with ears like her would be more subservient than a normal human girl. There it is - normal, as if she could never be anything like normal when two black cat ears sit among her dark locks. _Jungle fever_ , they call it on the CCT Net, for men and women who want a taste of something different, as if Blake is some five-course meal with barrels of wine on the side. She'd like someone to love her - if anyone ever could, after Adam - for herself. Not for her ears, or her looks, or even her brains, but the way she walks and laughs. Surely someone could see something to love in Blake Belladonna without first noticing the cat ears.

Blake is seventeen, body hard with lithe corded muscle but soft with hints of bust and butt, at the awkward stage where she is adult but not adult-enough for anyone to take her seriously. She is sixteen, and the world tells her to be optimistic because “ _it could be worse_ ”, and yet she knows that others’ misery does not negate her own. How could she not, when she is a recent defector of the White Fang?

 

It’s hard being a Faunus, even in the city of Vale. The city is fifty-percent Faunus, abnormally high for any city not on the island of Menagerie. Though her ears are hidden beneath a big black bow, somehow everyone knows and yet don’t care until another Faunus riot is in the news.

“ _We are strong because of our diversity_ ,” Headmaster Ozpin declares as he welcomes the newest batch of students to Beacon Academy. The initiation ceremony is broadcasted on every Valean screen, as this marks the 50th anniversary of the great war. “ _We are strong, not in spite of our differences, but because of them._ ”

The Cat Faunus’s ears flicker. Typical. Easy words, light platitudes, nothing that reflects the complexity of a city that is half Faunus, half human.

The news program switches to a local interview as the ceremony ends.

“I just don’t think these Faunus are integrating enough,” a woman with a purple undercut declares in front of Little Menagerie. Little Menagerie boasts a strip mall catering primarily to Faunus, but since has expanded with exports from the island prison. The woman gestures at the characters lining the storefront. “Look, they come here to our shores – they should learn our language. We were here first. There’s so many of them, and they build their stores, and they put up these signs that only they can read. It’s just not fair.”

“What do you think we could change?” Lisa Lavender asks, the image of composure.

“Every store should have a sign in Valean,” the woman says. “We’re supposed to be a diverse country. That goes both ways. If they come here, they have to take up our customs and our languages and our laws.”

Blake hisses to herself. _Yes, people should observe the laws of their new country. It would really help if you didn’t try to erase their identity!_

Then, _maybe I’m being too critical. This is their home. They probably feel like they’re being invaded._

“Do you think these signs are threatening Valean culture?”

“No,” the woman says after a long pause, “but it’s just not right. We’re a Valean city. We should act like it.”

 

 _It’s easy to praise diversity for strength_ , Blake thinks bitterly as she boards the bus to head to her temporary home. The driver is a Cat Faunus like herself, but her ears are a mottled gold with splotches of mud brown. _But once the minority threatens to outnumber the majority, suddenly_ diversity _is a threat._

She loses herself in tales of politics and intrigue once again, until the bus suddenly shudders to a stop with a series of sharp honks. The Cat Faunus is thrown into her neighbor.

“Sorry,” she blurts out. “Are you okay?”

“No worries,” her neighbor replies, picking up Blake’s fallen book. “Oh, man, Cryptid released a new book?”

Blake gingerly takes the book back. She mourns the new crease in its spine. “Yes, I just bought it today.”

“I hope it’s better than the fourth,” her neighbor grumbles. “The romance plot was absolute cancer."

Blake stifles a laugh. “I’m fifty pages in, and so far, no romance triangles on the Western Front.”

“Fucking finally,” her neighbor says. “I came for the politics, not the smushy mushiness. Cryptid’s strong point isn’t kiss and tell.”

The Cat Faunus’s heart swells. This is something she loves about Vale. People are willing to learn, a trait that was rare back in Menagerie. Perhaps it’s something inherent to poverty: when the ability to put food on your plate is swamped by the inability to pay your bills, your neighbors are suddenly much less important. There is poverty in Vale as well, but at least the air doesn’t stink of despair and the groundwater taste of thousands of failures and drowned dreams.

“I always wanted Pelagia to face justice. He was so abusive to Harriet,” Blake says, raising her voice slightly to overcome the chorus of honks outside the bus. “But now that I’m older, I’m not so sure anymore.”

“Don’t fall into the old person trap.” Her neighbor laughs and tosses their mane. The afternoon sun kisses gold highlights into their scarlet strands. “Change is like a pendulum. Push one way, and it will swing back. There’s plenty of time to change your opinion about that weasel.”

Blake shakes her head. “I’ve seen a lot of Pelagia apologists on Rollblr–“

“Is that a disease?”

“It’s a CCT site–“ Blake pauses as her neighbor’s grin widens. “Are you pulling an old person trap on me?”

“You kids and your new-fangled things.” Her neighbor mimes hunching over. “Back in my day, we had pigeons! And–“

“Go back to Menagerie!” a young man suddenly screams at the front of the bus. “Goddamn tail heads, coming here, taking over our damn jobs, buying up all the land.”

"Oh, for fuck's sake," her neighbor murmurs. "Not this shit again…"

“Sir, if you’ll just sit down,” the driver says in perfect Valean, “I can’t change the traffic–“

“Learn to fucking drive!” The young man thumps his seat with a fist. “We wouldn’t be in this jam if you could just fucking drive!”

“Who put this stick up his ass?” her neighbor asks with a frown.

“I don’t know,” Blake says, but the feel-goodness from connecting with a stranger is fast fading. Because she does know. Although the driver might have been born in Vale, she is forever a stranger because of two cat ears set upon her head.

Quick anger, easy anger, inconvenienced anger all swell within the heart of Vale. Though Blake does not always see it, she knows the poison is there. Who wouldn’t be angry at foreign buyers, taking up all the homes in an already overtaxed city? Who wouldn’t be angry at a near traffic accident? Who wouldn’t be angry at feeling like a stranger in their own home?

She just wishes that anger wasn’t so easily pinned on a pair of ears, or horns, or a lithe tail.

 

“Should we do something?” her neighbor asks as they get up.

 _What would they do?_ Blake thinks, distrust sinking long fingers into her thoughts. _Blame the driver for not driving well? Yelling isn’t a crime._

“He needs to calm down,” Blake says as she stores her book safely within her bookbag.

“If you call the transit police,” her neighbor says, “I’ll handle him.”

“I don’t have a Scroll, but I can handle him.”

Her neighbor sits back down and rustles through their schoolbag. “Gimme a moment… it's in here somewhere…”

Blake looks around the bus. All around her are quiet faces – Faunus, human, female, male – all silently absorbed in their Scrolls or napping away as the man at the front of the bus continues to hurl invectives at the driver. Passerby on the pavement outside stare into the bus, as if it’s just another exhibit at the zoo. But those inside do not stand up. And why should they? It’s not their business. Who cares if another driver is belittled and flecked with spittle?

 _Step right up_ , Blake thinks as she strides to the front, _angry kid berates poor bus driver, free drama to liven up your day._

The young man is baseball capped, wearing a sweat-stained t-shirt and a sporty digital watch. He looks no older than her, cheeks plump with youth and arms bulging with developing muscle. A baseball bat and cleats hang out of the dufflebag jangling at his side.

“What do you mean, you can’t call another?” he demands. “You can pass right there! I’m gonna be late!”

“I’m sorry, sir, but it would be illegal to pass there. That’s an accident.”

“You’re fucking useless! You saw that fucking car pull out–“

“Let’s all take a breath,” Blake says, keeping her tone as level as possible. To snap at him would only escalate a bad situation. “The driver’s doing the best she can.”

The baseball player rounds on her. His bat clanks against the window, and for a second, there’s that old fear that some misguided anger will land her on the business end of a baseball bat and into the ICU.

“Of course _you_ would defend your people.” He spits at her. “You’re all the same–“

“Cut it out,” her neighbor says. “I’ve called the police, and they’ll be here in five minutes. Do you want to act like this in front of them?”

Another passenger bangs on the bus’s rear doors. “Driver! I’d like to get off!”

“We might be here for a while, folks,” the driver says on the intercom. The baseball player’s threats and imprecations are barely drowned out. “If you want to get off now, there’s gonna be another bus in ten-fifteen minutes down the street.”

Only after sirens sound outside does the baseball player’s angry rant subside.

 

At long last, the bus rolls on its route. Blake looks at a newspaper abandoned by a passenger.

WHITE FANG TERRORIST ARRESTED! It reads. FAUNUS CONSPIRATORS IN THE COUNCIL!

 _I shouldn’t apologize for you_ , Blake thinks as she glares down at the terrorist in the pictures. His mug shot is centered prominently on the long bull horns curving out of his skull, and the bestial slant to his eyes. _So why do I feel so guilty? Yes, I’m former White Fang, but I left that life for a reason.  
_

But she knows it’s because he tangentially looks like her, and there is a guilt by association.

City streets turn into suburbs, as the bus rolls on. Blake looks at her reflection in the window and tries not to touch her cat ears. They mark her as different, and sometimes, she does not want to be different. She’d like to be Blake Belladonna, huntress, lover of books and a delicious bowl of tuna ramen.

She could cut off her ears. She could surgically alter her eyes to be rounder, less feline and wild. She could chase her dream of fitting in.

But Blake does not want to cookie-cutter herself into being accepted.

 _I’m good enough_ , she thinks, _and the world should accept the factory model._

She shakes her head. Just one outburst from a probably tired baseball player, and her thoughts are shaken. These outbursts are nothing new. They are everywhere on the CCT web, everywhere in the columns of the Valean Press, everywhere behind hands and whispered conversations.

 _We’re not racist_ , the people of Vale might say, _we just want our home to stay our home_.

Blake looks at herself, and wonders what she’d be willing to compromise to call Vale her home.

_Am I running away, from all the progress my ancestors and friends made? Do I need to be a herald and figurehead as they were?_

She touches her ears. A symbol of her Faunus heritage, locked behind a fabric cage, but undeniably a part of her. To take it away would kill a part of Blake Belladonna. To embrace it could get her killed– even if it was a one in a million chance, it would take only one disenfranchised former automobile worker with a bat and some friends to end her life.

 _No. I am Blake Belladonna, a cat Faunus_. She takes out her book. _They can’t take that part of me away, and I can’t give up on who I am._

_At least, I think I can’t._

 

**Author's Note:**

> Although this comes in the wake of the US 2016 election, this story has nothing to do with the election. This problem has existed long before, and it will continue long after. I was a bit preachier here, but that the preachiness is limited to this installment. Sorry if this is your introduction to Cladograms and Phylogenies!
> 
> I've been thinking about the Faunus and their lot in life. I hope Remnant is better about this than we Earthlings are.


End file.
